Supplementing Your Freelance Writing Income

It has to be said that lean times will always come in any business where your income is flexible. For the privilege of making lots of money one month, you may find you are making less money the next month.

Of course it makes sense to save a little during the good months to cover you during the lean months, but realistically you know that won’t happen! So what you need is a way of adding to your income. If you can’t pick up a extra writing job or two, then you need to find alternative ways of making some money on the side.

As a freelance writer you are already very familiar with using the internet as your main source of income. But there are a number of places you can use your writing skills and make some extra money which have nothing to do with writing articles and which are not reliant on finding that elusive client.

Auction sites

Yep, we are talking Ebay here. I am aware that other auction sites exist and these tips could easily apply to them. But I am familiar with Ebay, so…

Writing a killer description of the product you are selling is a great way to get a good price. All too often you turn to the description of a product and all it has is a one liner. This doesn’t inspire the average buyer.Use your writing skills to create a great sales piece and you could get a much better price.

Sell off items you have around the house, or even identify a product which is in high demand and source a supplier for that item. This could be a great residual income source just ticking over for those lean months and beyond.

Start a blog

You may not make huge amounts of money from a blog, but if you write decent articles on a good niche topic you could create a small and regular source of income. Look into selling affiliate products and having advertising on your blog. If you can manage to get a good number of readers, you can expect this income to grow and grow. There may even come a time when the blog takes over from the freelance writing work you do.

Mystery shopping

Sign up as a shopper for some mystery shopping companies. They simply ask you to go to a local store and make a purchase, fitting certain criteria. They will reimburse you for your purchase and pay you a set fee on top of that. In most cases this is about £10.

Your writing skills will come in handy as you need to write up a report on your shopping experience. The better this report, the more likely you are to be asked to complete another assignment.

I do this from time to time and it really is fun. I feel a bit mean sometimes as I am a very harsh critic, but it is nice to have power as a shopper for a change!

Writing competitions/short story magazines

If you have a creative writing streak, you may want to consider submitting a story or two to a writing competition. Personally, my creative writing has stayed firmly as a personal thing, but I am sure that many of you would love the opportunity to get away from dry online writing and try your hand at something a little more left brain.

If you have a few good short stories written you can start submitting them to various magazines. The pay is pretty good although you can expect to wait several months for payment after submission. Just make sure you read the magazine first, so you don’t embarrass yourself with something inappropriate.

Sell your hobby

We all have things we love to do when we are not writing. I like to knit and usually have all of my Christmas presents handknitted and ready to go by the end of the year. I save a little money and it is something I enjoy.

You might like baking cakes, making jewellery, painting or wood-working. If you can get together enough products, you could try selling them at local craft fairs or even boot-sales.

Consider getting together with someone else who makes similar or complementary products and sharing a stall. This can result in a little spending money for a days work. Plus it is fun!

Whatever it is that you feel you can do to get some more income, you need to make sure it is something you can pick up and put down at a moments notice. There is no point if it takes up more time than your core writing work. However being flexible is the byword of being self employed, so if you find your supplementary income is starting to overtake your freelance writing income, you are on to a winner. Stick with it and see where it takes you.